Quick Query

[doobiwan]

Heh heh heh, true Touche.

Okay for those nit picky pedantic sorts

Don't buy any Graphics card with 64bit memory bandwidth

 

[mccrack]

Hmmm,

OK, so i got the el 'cheapo card (FX5500) and so far it sucks balls.
Sure, some in game video that was choppy is now smoother, but
to me it seems that some of my games a running are little "choppier" with the
FX5500 256MB than the Geforce4 MX 440 64MB ........ arrrgh.......

 

[mccrack]

Does anyone have a log in to experts-exchange.com ?

This guy seems to be having the same problem that i am but being a pay site i dont want to splash R60 for 1 possible solution.

I recently purchased a DVD burner from Newegg.com - Since the prices were so good, I decided to buy a new video card as well, since the one I was using (64MB) was starting to have troble running many new games and programs. Since I have had bad luck with ATI cards in the past, I chose a 256MB Nvidia card. It can be seen here:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-145-076&depa=0

When it arrived, I installed it and it ran without a single problem. However, I started to notice a significant slowdown speed in my games. When I originally purchased the card, it had appeared to surpass my original card in every way - however, I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something or if I misunderstood something somewhere. I've since switched my old card back into my PC until I can figure out what the deal is.

The stats for my original card are as follows: (I used a benchmarking program called "3DMark" to get the info)

NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Total Local Video Memory: 64 MB
Total Local Texture Memory: 64 MB
Total AGP Memory: 128 MB
Max Texture Width: 2048 px
Max Texture Height: 2048 px
VGA Memory Clock: 333.0 MHz
VGA Core Clock: 249.8 MHz
(it plugs into my AGP slot)

The stats on my new card are:
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Total Local Video Memory: 256 MB
Total Local Texture Memory: 256 MB
Total AGP Memory: 128 MB
Max Texture Width: 4096 px
Max Texture Height: 4096 px
VGA Memory Clock: 405 MHz
VGA Core Clock: 270 MHz
(it slso plugs into my AGP slot)

The only other clue I have as to what might be wrong is that the new card is a "128-bit" card, whereas it appears that my old card is a "256-bit" card.

Any help figuring out whats going on and which of these two cards is better would be greatly appreciated.

SOURCE: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Q_21270349.html

 

[gkm]

I am not sure if I trust that site. But do not have any specific reason.

My suggestion would be to exchange the card if you still can for an ATI one. The 5 series NVidias really missed the boat.

Otherwise, overclock the card, as far as it can go without having artifacts.

 

[rburley]

Try go for the 9600xt if you can, I still got one and it pumps...

 

[mccrack]

Hmmmm,

Found out that the game i'm playing at the mo does not have the FX5500 in the supported list so that could explain the choppy frame rates.
However suprisignly it runs Doom3 decently albeit toned down.

Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[gkm]

Doom 3 uses OpenGL, instead of DirectX.

 

[rburley]

dont you mean direct3d

 

[mccrack]

Baaah,

It's still a stinky card, unfortunately my budget does not allow for much better
so me's going to overclock it and see if that helps any.

 

[gkm]

dont you mean direct3d

Direct3D is part of DirectX. However, I guess, strictly speaking you are right, since they might be using other parts of DirectX for sound etc in Doom 3.

But the 3D graphics in Doom 3 is certainly OpenGL based.